The war is also financed through crypto
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, crypto helped finance logistics on both sides.
Crypto fuels the war between Russia and Ukraine
On February 24 in Ukraine, as a result of the Russian invasion, the war between the two countries that started eight years earlier experienced a huge new chapter.
In the public eye, there was immediate consternation at how a war of such proportions could still be taking place today, and on Europe’s doorstep at that.
The destruction it has caused, the military and civilian energy expended, the weapons and related supplies generate exorbitant costs even in terms of food supplies and common medicines.
A recent study by Chain analysis has shed light on how Russia, through pro-Russian organisations, has obtained a hefty sum which stands at 2.2 million dollars.
The decidedly respectable amount goes to the expenses that the war machine imposes such as meals, logistics, weapons or medicine for the wounded, but it is small compared to the amount of donations received in digital currencies from the buffer state.
Ukraine, in addition to receiving out-of-pocket assistance in Ethereum from Vitalik Buterin himself, or for example from Visa, the world’s most popular credit and debit card operator, has seen huge amounts of Bitcoin and other currencies flow into the pockets, numbers run into hundreds of millions of dollars.
The financing action of digital currencies has not only been useful for enriching one party instead of the other, but also because of the traceability and transparency that it is characterized by.
Such a transparent and functional method has contributed to the detection of pro-Russian cells and their dismantling.
Half of the fundraising accounts solicited public support for militias located in Ukraine’s Donbas region, specifically Donetsk and Luhansk.
The 54 organizations, which have accumulated a total of $2.2 million in crypto, have accumulated mainly BTC and ETH, but also Tether, Litecoin and Dogecoin.
Donations in favor of the two factions
The crypto donations requested by these organizations, mainly through social media, was made with texts such as:
” […] We have only 150 thousand rubles left to collect for a drone that will be able to bring “gifts” to the locations of our Ukrainian “friends”. We hope to be able to capture it on video and delight you with interesting pictures”.
Or others preferred to send real shopping lists, as in this case:
“Hello dear friends! Once again we have brought a cargo stick for our fighter planes. Our car arrived on July 16, but the protocol is only being written now, as we have not had time and communication. This time we have brought: […]”.
Mentions a long list of weapons, medicines, foodstuffs and logistics.
Investigators also discovered probable sanction links to donation accounts that can be traced back to people who have already been reported to authorities.
Furthermore, cryptocurrencies have been an important tool to track all the channels that lead to the Russian government avoiding sanctions through the use of digital currencies, which is actually a dead end as it is. easily tracked and stopped.
